Shipping-package.



PATENTBD MAR. 15, 1904.

J. A. BOWER. SHIPPING PACKAGE.

APPLICATION FILED AYE. 13, 1903.

INVEHTOR v 4 WIT SSES &- a.

- is so extremely light that its weight as freight when a suflicient number have been accumu- UNITED STATES Patented March 15, 1904.

"PATENT ()FFICE.

JOHN A. BOWER, OF PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVAWIA.

SHIPPING-PACKAGE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 754,537, dated March 15, 1904.

Application filed April I3, 1903- To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JOHN A. BowER, a citizen of the United States, residing at Pittsburg, in the county of Allegheny and State of Pennsylvania, have invented or discovered new and useful Improvements 'in Shipping-Packages, of which the following is a specification.

In the accompanying drawings, which make part of this specification, Figure I is a perspective of my improved shippingpackage, partly broken away. Fig. II is a perspective of the one end of the inclosing carton broken away. Fig. III is an elevation of. one end of the corner-strip, showing the ears by which the strips are locked to the end plates.

The purpose of my invention, generally stated, is to devise a cheap yet substantial shipping-package to inclose other packages of rectangular form. My improved shipping-package is particularly adapted to be used as an inclosure for what are known to the trade as shelf goods, of which cereals form a very large proportion; but it is not my intention to limit my package to these uses only, as the same can be employed for any goods put up in substantially rectangular form.

It is well known that the price of wooden boxes has during the past few years arisen so rapidly in value as to make the cost of the same exceedingly enormous to large shippers. Moreover, the wooden box has a very considerable weight and adds materially to the freight charges for this reason. The pack age which I will now proceed to describe not only possesses the element of great relative cheapness compared to wooden boxes, but also is negligible. Furthermore, the wooden boxes are usually destroyed in opening, or, if not,

aretoo heavy or too diflicult to pack in a compact manner to be returned after use. On the contrary, constituent parts of my package after they have been received by the consignee can be readily preserved and piled in a knocked-down shape in very small space, and

and bottom plates.

Serial No. 152,329- (No model.)

lated can be returned at very low freight charge for reuse.

In the accompanying drawings, which make part of this specification, A represents the boxes or packages which are to be shipped as, for instance, coffee, rice, breakfast-foods, or other cereals. These goods are almost invariably put up in rectangular shape and are themselves inclosed in boxes of considerable strength, so that whena series of these boxes are tightly fitted inside a containing-box they will themselves afford considerable resistance to crushing or breaking from shock.

B represents a carton which forms the body of the shipping-package. The four sides of this carton are preferably made, as shown in Fig. 11, with the two flaps b. The material from which I prefer to make these cartons is a stiff but flexible fibrous material of strawboard or cardboard or analogous goods, and the cartons should be made of such size and shape that they will contain exactly a certain number of the small rectangular boxes containing the goods, so that these boxes will fit closely on all sides of the carton and furnish 'suflicient interior resistance to counteract the ordinary exterior pressure to which the package would be exposed.

The four longitudinal edges of the carton are defended by angular strips of sheet-steel C, provided with projecting tongues 0. The ends of the carton are covered by die-sunk steel sheets D, which are preferably provided with flanges d d around their entire periphery. The four corners of these steel plates .are provided with slots cl, through which the tongues 0 are subsequently pinned down fiat, locking the steel corner-strips to the steel top Obviously other methods of securing the corner-strips to the plates could be resorted tov than those herein described.

It will be observed that my shipping-package is easily assembled and easily taken apart, while the most vulnerable portions are protected by metallic inclosures, yet the bulk of tom ends connected together by said corner- I pieces, said corner-pieces being distinct and separable from the said ends and carton.

Signed at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, this 11th day of April, 1903.

JOHN A. BOWER.

Witnesses:

A. M. STEEN, F. N. BARBER. 

